The first escort entered far enough to inspect the sitting room before making space for the second.
Their uniforms carried the War Office insignia. Neither wore a palace guard’s colors, and neither looked toward Vaeloria for permission to approach. Their attention moved from the people gathered around the table to Derpy’s wrists, then to the clear stretch of floor between his chair and the door.
Lenora stayed beside him. Moving in front of the chair would have blocked his view of the visitors, but it would also have put her within reach of the restraint equipment on their belts. She watched their hands instead.
A clerk followed, carrying a narrow case against his side. He stopped between the escorts and bowed to Vaeloria with the minimum movement required to acknowledge her position.
“Your Majesty. I have the transfer confirmation.”
“You are late,” Vaeloria said.
The clerk set his case on the end of the table. Lewd moved Blight Vein out of its path before he could push the book aside.
“The authorization required additional seals.”
He released the catches and lifted out a sheet of thick parchment. Several layers of official marks covered its lower edge. Rune-ink shimmered between them, brightening when he separated the document from the lining of the case.
Amy leaned close enough to read the heading. Lyn remained near the doorway, where she could see both escorts without turning her back on Vaeloria. Mk3 had withdrawn from the table after giving her account, but she stayed in the room.
Sinister watched the clerk arrange the parchment.
“You took a great deal of care with that,” he said. “I hope the contents justify the effort.”
The clerk addressed the queen.
“By order of the War Council, under the authority of Arcane Munitions Command—”
“Do not speak that title in my sitting room as though it places you beyond questioning,” Vaeloria said. “I know whose seal you brought.”
The clerk paused. His thumb pressed against the edge of the document before he continued.
“The subject is to be transferred for secure containment and evaluation at Site Black. We require confirmation of release into our custody.”
Amy’s gaze stopped moving across the page.
Lewd felt the pressure of the book’s cover against her palm and realized she was pressing down hard enough to hurt her hand. Beside the chair, Lenora shifted her weight forward.
Sinister looked from one face to the next.
“There it is again,” he said. “You should have led with the destination. It seems to be the part everyone recognizes.”
The clerk finally looked at him. His eyes rested on the bracelets before returning to his face.
“The transport arrangements are secure.”
“For whom?” Lenora asked.
“For everyone involved.”
“Then explain what happens when he arrives.”
The clerk drew the parchment slightly closer to himself. “The receiving facility will conduct its own assessment. My responsibility is the transfer.”
Vaeloria remained seated, but the stillness of her expression made the clerk stand straighter.
“And you believe the authority on that page permits you to remove someone from my palace without my agreement?”
“The War Council has authorized us to proceed.”
“You have repeated that,” she replied. “You have not answered me.”
One escort moved his thumb along a clasp on his belt. Lenora noticed. So did Lyn.
Lewd stepped closer to the table. “You heard her. You cannot walk in here and—”
Sinister raised a hand between her and the clerk.
She stopped because of where he had placed it: directly across the line she would have to cross to reach the visitors. His attention remained on the escort touching his equipment.
“I’ll go,” he said.
The clerk’s grip loosened on the parchment.
Lenora turned toward the chair. “You agreed to that very quickly.”
“They have gone to considerable trouble to invite me.”
“That is a transfer order,” Vaeloria said. “You understand what they intend.”
“I understand what they have brought into your sitting room.” Sinister smiled at the clerk. “Whether they understand what they intend to take away remains uncertain.”
Lewd’s voice tightened. “Derpy, do not make this into a game.”
His eyes moved to her.
“You know who you are speaking to. And you know I gave my word that you would be safe.”
“You are not the only person in that body who has to survive the journey.”
The clerk cleared his throat before Sinister could answer.
“If the subject is willing to cooperate, the remaining procedures can be completed without difficulty.”
Sinister lowered his hand to the table.
“You can take me awake. No sedation.”
The relief left the clerk’s face in small stages. First his mouth tightened, then his attention flicked toward the escorts.
“Sedation is standard for this category of transfer.”
“Then change the procedure.”
“That is not within my authority.”
Sinister glanced at the layered seals.
“You arrived with enough authority to interrupt a queen, but none to accept the cooperation you claim to want. That seems inconvenient.”
The nearer escort released the clasp on his belt. A pair of runed cuffs hung beneath it, their inner surfaces lined with marks too small to read from across the table. His companion touched the fastening on his own gauntlet.
Lenora turned fully toward them.
“Keep those where they are,” she said. “He has already told you his terms.”
The clerk hesitated. He looked at the writ again, although nothing on it had changed.
Then he nodded.
The escort with the cuffs stepped forward.
Sinister let out a quiet breath and looked up at the nearest rune-lamp.
Both bracelets pulsed.
The lamp went out before the escort completed his step. Every other light in the sitting room followed. Beyond the open door, the corridor lamps died in succession, leaving the far end of the passage beyond the reach of the morning light.
The windows still admitted pale strips of daylight. They showed the clerk’s hand suspended over his case, the dull metal of the cuffs, and the faces of people waiting for the rest of the palace to respond.
It did not.
The low pressure of the wards had been so constant that their absence felt like a change in the room’s dimensions. Lyn put her hand against the doorframe, searching for the familiar thread beneath the carved surface.
Nothing answered her touch.
“The wards are down,” she said.
Vaeloria’s gaze settled on Sinister. “What have you done to my palace?”
“Interrupted a procedure.”
The escort beside the door pressed the rune on his gauntlet. A blue spark jumped across its surface and vanished. He tried again with enough force to make the leather creak.
Sinister watched him.
“I would stop doing that. You have already established that it doesn’t work.”
“Restore the wards,” Vaeloria said.
He turned back to her. “Once your guests have finished deciding whether they intend to put those on me.”
The escort holding the cuffs had gone still. Without their runes, the restraints looked heavier and less useful. He glanced toward the clerk, waiting for an instruction the man appeared reluctant to give.
Sinister remained in his chair with his hands visible. The faint light from his bracelets reached the underside of his fingers.
“I offered to walk out of here,” he said. “Awake, on my own feet. You preferred a different arrangement. Now we can discuss which part of that choice you would like to reconsider.”
Lewd moved into his line of sight.
“Stop enjoying this long enough to look at what you have done.”
He raised his eyes to her face. “No one has been injured.”
“Lyn just told you the wards are gone. You have left everyone here exposed because you wanted to prove they couldn’t force you.”
“Would you have preferred that I let them?”
“I would prefer you listen when someone tells you that you are putting him in danger.”
The smile returned more slowly this time.
“You liked him better when he stood in front of the danger for you. Your kind little knight could be frightened, exhausted, or half broken, provided he still tried to do the right thing. Is it so difficult to believe there is something in him that has stopped caring whether strangers approve?”
Lewd’s ears drew back. Her hand tightened around the edge of Blight Vein, but she did not lift it.
“You do not get to tell me what I liked about him. And you do not get to call every reckless decision survival just because you are the one making it.”
Lenora’s attention stayed on the escorts, giving Lewd room to speak without leaving their visitors unwatched.
Sinister settled against the back of the chair.
“He made the bargain because he could not keep going as he was. I am not going to spend the time he gave me repeating everything that failed him.”
“Then do something that helps,” Lewd said. “You have stopped the cuffs. They are standing still. What reason do you have to keep the whole palace defenseless?”
His eyes moved past her toward the clerk.
“I want them to remember the conversation accurately.”
Vaeloria rose.
The clerk turned toward her so quickly that the edge of his writ caught against the open case.
“Then we will give them a clear account to carry back,” she said. “You will not remove him from my palace under these terms.”
“Your Majesty, the order—”
“Has been presented. I have read enough to understand it, and I am refusing the transfer.”
He looked toward the escorts. Neither moved to support him.
Vaeloria stepped away from her chair. The morning light caught one side of her face, leaving the other in the dimness Sinister had made.
“You brought restraints into a room where no one had attacked you. When he agreed to accompany you with a condition, you instructed your escorts to proceed without his agreement. Make certain that appears in your report.”
The clerk straightened the parchment against his case.
“His interference with the palace defenses will also be recorded.”
“Record it,” Vaeloria said. “And record that I addressed it. You do not need to omit one action to account for another.”
Sinister watched her with renewed interest.
“He remains under my protection,” she continued. “Any further attempt to take him through these halls by force will be treated as the action of those who ordered and carried it out. You will not make it inevitable by calling him a monster first.”
The clerk’s gaze shifted toward Lyn, who stood beside the only exit.
She moved enough to leave it accessible.
“Write that the transfer was denied by the queen,” she said. “Use her title correctly. There is no reason for your superiors to misunderstand which part of this meeting requires their attention.”
Amy reached across the table and pushed the empty lining of the case flat where it had folded over a catch. The small movement made the clerk look down.
“You will have an easier time closing it now,” she said.
He returned the writ to its place with careful hands.
“We will report this in full.”
“I expect you to,” Vaeloria replied.
His second bow was deeper than the first. He backed away from the table before turning toward the door. The escorts followed, one keeping a hand over the dead rune on his gauntlet, the other holding the cuffs close to his belt as though putting them away too quickly would concede something further.
Lyn watched all three enter the corridor. She waited until their footsteps had moved beyond the nearest junction before closing the door.
The lamps remained dark.
Vaeloria turned back to the table.
“Restore the wards.”
Sinister looked up at the unlit lamp above him. “They left without anyone bleeding. That is a reasonable result.”
“It is the immediate result,” Amy said. “They now know they cannot rely on the equipment they brought. Whatever arrives next will be chosen with that in mind.”
“Then I look forward to seeing what they consider an improvement.”
“You are speaking as though this is a private challenge,” Vaeloria said. “There are people working in these halls who had no part in your bargain or that transfer order. They depend on the defenses you disabled.”
Lenora moved away from the chair. With the escorts gone, standing between Sinister and the door served no purpose. She joined Lewd beside the book instead.
Sinister noticed the change.
“You have made your objection clear,” he told the queen.
“Then act as though you heard it.”
The warmth at his wrists brightened, but the lamps did not return.
Lyn kept her palm near the doorframe. She could still feel no response from the ward-thread.
Vaeloria saw the slight movement of her head.
“You will not do this again,” she said.
Sinister met her eyes. “If someone tries to restrain me again, I will stop them again.”
“Do not pretend those are the only choices available to you. I stood here and refused the transfer. Lenora warned them. Lewd challenged them. You were not alone in this room.”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Lewd watched his face, searching for any sign that the words had reached the person beneath it. The pause lasted just long enough to make her hope before he rested his forearms on the table.
“And I appreciate your assistance.”
Her expression hardened.
“That sounded practiced.”
“Would you prefer an argument?”
“I would prefer the lights back on.”
Vaeloria held his attention before he could answer her.
“The War Office will return. I do not know what they will bring, and neither do you. I can oppose their order. I cannot make their next decision less dangerous while you are giving them reasons to escalate it.”
Sinister rose at last. Lenora tracked the movement, but he only adjusted the position of one bracelet with his thumb.
“Let them come,” he said. “They will still have to deal with me when they arrive.”
“And Derpy will have to deal with what remains when you are finished,” Lenora replied.
He glanced at her.
“I promised to keep you safe. I did not promise to be obedient.”
The bracelet beneath his thumb gave a sudden pulse.
Mk3 caught the edge of a nearby chair.
Lyn turned at the sound of its legs scraping against the floor. Mk3’s fingers trembled against the wood. Her gaze had fixed on a point beyond the sitting-room wall.
“What is it?” Lenora asked.
Mk3 opened her mouth, then closed it again. The sensation had arrived too quickly to put into words: a pressure behind her eyes, followed by a pull so distinct that the room seemed briefly tilted toward it.
Sinister looked at her hands.
Across the city, Mk1 stopped moving.
The same pressure tightened through her. She turned toward the palace before she had decided to look for it, her body recognizing a direction her eyes could not yet confirm.
Elsewhere, Mk2 halted with one foot still raised. She set it down facing a different way.
Mk4’s pupils narrowed. Everything around her lost importance beside the sudden tension running through the connection.
No spoken command passed between them. Something that had rested slack was being pulled taut, and each doll felt the change through herself.
In the sitting room, Mk3 released the chair.
“The strings,” she said. “Something has changed.”
Lewd looked from her to Sinister. “What did you do?”
He watched Mk3 move toward the door without answering.
Lyn stepped into her path, leaving enough space that she did not have to touch her.
“Tell us where you are going.”
Mk3 shook her head. She could feel the direction. A destination had not formed around it yet.
“I have to find the others.”
Lyn looked toward Vaeloria. The queen gave a small nod, and Lyn opened the door.
Mk3 was already moving before it had cleared the frame. Her footsteps hurried down the unlit corridor, growing faster as she reached the junction.
Beyond the palace, the other dolls had begun to move as well. They crossed the city with a speed that left startled people turning after them, each searching for the source of the strain.
Then a seam opened elsewhere in the city.
It began as a narrow distortion, a line where the space on one side no longer matched the space on the other. The line widened. Reality folded along it, and Riven stepped through before the edges had settled.
She stopped with her face turned toward the palace.
The pull reached her without needing a voice. She felt its direction, the tension behind it, and enough of the wrongness to know she could not remain where she was.
“Derpy,” she said quietly. “What has happened to you?”
Mk1 reached her first. Mk2 and Mk4 converged a moment later, their frantic movement finding a purpose as soon as they saw her.
Riven turned toward the route ahead.
“Stay with me. We are going to him.”
She did not wait for an answer. The dolls followed as she moved, and along the approach to the palace, Mk3 ran to meet them.
Inside the sitting room, Vaeloria was still waiting for her wards to answer.
Outside, Riven led the dolls toward the palace, with no one yet in their path to explain what had taken control of Derpy—or what would happen when they reached him.
The War Office had come to collect one prisoner.
Before the day was over, the Elven Empire would have far more to contain.